As the title indicates, this page is for capturing comments about the data entry screens being developed by our Database Team. The images below are pictures for reference only. If you would like to participate in the live test, please contact Liza (liza at hcle dot org). There is also plenty of further work to do on the catalog so you also contact us if you would like to volunteer your programming skills. We are particularly in need of someone experienced in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
Two other databases will store information about what is on the HCLE web sites (content management) and the individuals and institutions associated with HCLE (constituency relations management). Each of these database systems has its own data entry scheme and storage tables. Some of the information displayed in the Catalog Views will come from these other systems.
Catalog Database Overview
To be cobbled together from earlier pages...
We want to include any document, image, periodical, book, piece of software or physical item (computer, for example) that might be of use in telling our story. Some of these items are held by LO*OP Center, Inc. as part of the HCLE archive. Others are in museums, libraries and private collections around the world. Many items are "born digital", have no representation in the physical world and are accessible only through someone else' web site. Some are conventionally copyrighted and can only be referenced or briefly quoted by HCLE. Others are public domain (without copyright) or carry a Creative Commons (or other) licence that is less restrictive than old fashioned copyright.
The Catalog contains many details about each item. There are fields that identify the item itself, describe it in detail and provide information about how it was used.
HCLE Catalog Maintenance Program
We are developing this program for use by staff and volunteers to put items and a large body of metadata into our catalog and digital repository. To use it, the user must first have entered his/her personal information into our People/Organizations data base (CiviCRM). The Maintenance Program will check to see that the name is there and open the appropriate form to register the user if this has not already been done. (The interface to CiviCRM has not been created yet. Users are manually setup by the support staff until the interface is ready.)
The Catalog Maintenance System will be used by HCLE staff and data entry volunteers to search for items, edit items previously entered in the catalog or for adding new items into the catalog. The Maintenance System has 5 functions available on the top navigation bar:
Search {now labeled Catalog Maint or Catalog Home}
Catalog
Selections
FAQs
Contact Us
Of these, Catalog is the most developed.
It has 6 "views" or "screens" selectable through its drop-down menu. Each view displays related information drawn from a single record in the database. The views are:
Bibliography
Full
Identify
Preservation
Subject
Technical
Each view has prompts to help choose the right vocabulary to describe the item being cataloged but new catalogers should be coached by an experienced staff member before setting off on their own.
At the moment (29 Oct. 2014) anyone with the URL can search the catalog by item number. To change anything you must be logged in. The Database Team is hard at work implementing and testing this program. Please contact Liza at hcle dot org if you would like to work on this aspect of HCLE.
Let's look at each View.
Identify View
This is the first set of information to fill in when adding an item to our Catalog database. Imagine your task is to make catalog entries for a stack of informal publications that includes newsletters from hobby clubs, conference proceedings, advertisements from educational software companies, user manuals, program listings and handwritten notes. Here are a series of questions you must answer to do the job.
Am I in the People-Organizations Data Base (CiviCRM)? (Or temporary user database)
Am I authorized to enter data (Login)? (All items can be viewed, but login is required to make changes to the items.)
Is this item already in the HCLE catalog? (Search function on the Catalog Maintenance Home screen allows you to find records.)
Is it related to Computing in Learning and Education?
If yes, is there a digital copy of it publicly available somewhere on the web?
If not, has HCLE scanned it yet?
If it's not in the catalog, what is the next available Item Number? (New items are added via the Identify_view using the "Create New Item" button without pre-assigning a new item number.)
Where should I put this item after I've filled in as much of this view as I can?
Liza's expanded questions, related to the list above, for Database Team (Oct. 2, 2014)
My testing procedure is simple. I just try to enter new data. This uncovers small, insignificant glitches as well as big ones. You'll have to tell me which ones are which. Does the wiki page help? (This page is: http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Data_entry_screens_beta)
Here are some further notes based on the questions from that page. I know you won't have time to think about them until later but I'll just capture my thoughts now while they are fresh.
Q1 & 2 Login, CiviCRM and WordPress
Liza (10/5) - I think you (Stan) said that hooking into CiviCRM wouldn't be too difficult. I'm assuming we can address this later. Right?
Stan (10/5) -- CiviCRM seems to allow us to check for users and possibly permissions, but as yet does not provide password validation that can be used by an external system. I my just need to do some more research, but I think the password verification will not be provided by CiviCRM. Liza (10/6)-- CiviCRM runs under WordPress. I think WordPress does the login validation. I don't know whether it is possible to create a Login in WordPress that looks to the user like logging in to HCLE rather than WordPress. It should be possible. Stan (10/12) -- Looking at using Wordpress to manage the login, then a separate call to CiviCRM to see what level of access the contributor has. Each step will require separate research and development. Stan (10/13) --
I've spent several hours researching and testing with the CiviCRM API, hoping it would allow us to determine the user access based on CiviCRM data.
The CiviCRM API will allow me to access Individual, Household and Organization records, but not the User records. I'd hoped to use the User Role to determine what access rights they would have to the catalog. The Individual records can be updated by the user, allowing them to set their own access...NOT GOOD.
If CiviCRM allowed access to the User data, this would have worked, but since the API does not support this function, I don't believe we can use CiviCRM for access control to the catalog. If you want to run this by the CiviCRM expert, it would either confirm my theory, or give us options that I have not uncovered. I don't want to cost the project any money though and I'm 99% sure the User Data is not accessible via the API.
I am still looking into using the Wordpress Login to validate the Catalog Maintenance users. Based on the information above, all I would be able to do is allow anyone that is logged in full access to modify the Catalog. There would be no separate roles. If they had access to modify the Catalog, they could also modify the Selection Options. If this is acceptable, then I could try to implement this approach.
Q3 - Searching before Data Entry
Liza (10/5)
- To me (Liza) this is a biggy. Our plan has been to address data entry first so we've been focused on the entry screens. I didn't realize that we'd need to search before we could enter. For now I'm using both Omeka and phpMYadmin to see what's in the directory of images (digital repository). This is much less functional than my old Access system so it's a source of frustration. One process I know I'm bad at is keeping straight in my head which copy of a system I'm working on. This means I can easily get confused about whether my screen is showing me what is in the digital repository on hostGator, what has been copied to Omeka, what is on your 'production system', what's at Stanford and what is resident on my local laptop. If I scan a new item, where do I put the image?
Stan (10/5)
-- There is no requirement to search for an item before you enter or change data. You can either search and select an item from the Catalog Home screen, or go directly to one of the view screens and select an item using the selection tool at the bottom of the view. Liza (10/5)
-- Am I right that you mean you, as programmer, have not required that the user search for an item? I'm taking the point of view of the user. Someone sitting down with an item, a magazine, for example, in hand will need to determine whether that item is already in the Catalog. This is the search I'm talking about. Stan (10/6) -- The HTML attachment I sent you last week was basically a report of the key fields for every record in the database. This was a prototype based on our conversation that you needed an easy way to identify records that were missing critical information, ex. Title and Description. I put together a prototype to see if that is what you wanted. I need your feedback to know if I was providing something useful. Liza (10/5)
-- I'm still pondering this. I'd like the user to be able to select the field to display and then have the choice of scrolling up and down the table of records or to jump to a record on the basis of a keyword before scrolling. Stan (10/5) -- Use this link to view/update items. It is the production server for the beta testing and will be the permanent catalog maintenance system.http://loopcntr.net/catalog_new/identify_view.php
Liza (10/5) -- Maybe the search link on the Home page is supposed to put you into the Identify View. If so, it isn't working. The user needs to be able to move back and forth between search and enter smoothly. Can we put a Search button on the Navigation Bar of each View? Stan (10/6) -- The search should now take you to the Identify_view page. I like the idea of the search button on the navigation bar. Stan (10/5) -- The new catalog maintenance beta system does not have a repository for storing images. I was under the impression they would be housed on other servers across the web and the catalog maintenance would only store the URL for the image. You mentioned there may be multiple URLs for some items. This functionality should be easy to add. It just needs to be prioritized.Since I have no interaction with the other systems you are using, I can only offer the link above to the system we are developing. Liza (10/6) -- OK. Our repository is on HostGator. I'll have to get together a cheat sheet on how to upload images. A common workflow will be to have the unscanned item in one's hand, search for it in our catalog and on the web, then, if it isn't in our catalog, get a new ID number and fill out the Identify View. The next set of steps involves making the image accessible. If there is a useable image on the web we can enter its URL into the Identify screen. If not we can scan the item, either immediately or later. In no case should the Identify View return an error message if the image is missing. Rather, it should say "Image not currently available". We also need to add Field 44 to the Identify screen to we know whether we have decided to scan the image later or not. Stan (10/7) Field 44 added to Identify View. It will will be part of the Preservation View. Message changed to show the image is not available.
Stan (10/8) --
Search on Nav Bar is now working
Added field 44 to Identify View
Added Next and Previous links to each page (near where you can select a new item
Q4. Evaluating Items for relevance to the project
This isn't a database question at all. But I do need to address it with my data entry crew when the time comes.
Q5.
Most of this is also outside the scope of our immediate task except that we need to test the entering of an 'outside' URL. I don't understand how to create a new item (NOT using this data) with a new Item Number from the Identify view. This means I can't test outside URLs yet. I'm guessing that they won't work because the won't have a valid URL in the digital repository.
Stan (10/5) -- Using the Identify_view there is a button at the bottom for adding new items. The direction we were going was that some of the information on the identify view is critical and required, only the identify view would be used for adding new records. Additional data would be entered on the other views after the addition is done here. Existing items can be modified to point to any URL on the web. There are some links in existing records that don't seem to be something that can be referenced from a browser and they throw an error when you try to update the item. I can change this to only check the validity of a link if the link has changed. This needs to be prioritized.Added 10/6 - the error was only shown if the link had changed. The PHP error that was shown has been removed.
Liza -- Yes, we may need a slight direction change. Let's talk. (we talked on 10/6 and 8) Stan (10/8) --
Added a text entry field for a new item (as an option to the scroll list
Q6.
Ah ha! I've discovered a mistake I made months ago. The preservation view, on the wiki here: http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Catalog_Data_Entry_Process was the wrong picture. I've corrected it. The new image displays original field number 44: To Scan, photo, copy. The point of this is to let the data entry person know whether the image is available yet or not. I was expecting the Identify View (or screen) to be used by both data entry people and catalog visitors. Now that we are doing views strictly for catalog maintenance it is appropriate to put field 44 on the Identify View. It should go near the top. If there's no other room let's replace 'Fragility' with 'To Scan'.
Stan (10/5) -- I will look at adding this field. It should be a fairly easy change. This needs to be prioritized. Liza (10/5) -- Show me your priority list, Stan, and I'll figure out where to fit this in. Stan -- I forgot to mention earlier that all views allow visitors to view, but not modify the data. Is this implemented correctly? Stan (10/7) -- Added field 44 to the Identify View. It will also be on the Preservation View when it is developed.
Q5a.
This brings up another question. What do we do if we have multiple images of a single item? Can we add another field, one to many, that lets us record the URLs of additional images of the Identified item?
Stan - I can change the URL field to allow multiple URLs. I would display a thumbnail of the first URL on the right side. Would this work for you? This needs to be prioritized. Liza - ok.
7.
Let's talk about how to get new numbers. I don't think I understand what you have implemented so far so I can't critique it.
Stan - Numbers are assigned after clicking the "Create New Item" button at the bottom of the Identify_view page. Numbers are not pre-assigned. Pre-assigning numbers become cumbersome if by mistake a "new number" is already being used. I find it runs much smoother if the numbers are automatically assigned within the system when new items are entered. We could require only a title and description for the item, add it to the system, then mark the bag/box/etc that contains the item. Do we need to discuss? Liza - Yes, a little more discussion and then I think your suggestion may be a good compromise.
8.
'Interim' should go with Box/Drawer and Folder. This is about how to find an item while we are processing it at LO*OP Center. 'Location' is for permanent location after the item has been digitized and found its final home. Location field should probably be linked to a CiviCRM record.
Stan - I'm not sure I understand. Lets discuss this next time we talk, or if you prefer, provide an example of a couple of scenarios. Stan (10/6) -- Added separate box number and folder number fields to view. Implementation is incomplete as a new field needs to be added to the database for this implementation.
Subject View
As of Oct.6, 2014 -- Problems with Subject View
1. Login button on bottom of screen says 'Logoff' when user isn't logged in. Msg, same line to right, says Logged in as ll1 when not logged in.
Bibliography View
Full View
I put the prototype data on the production server (loopcntr.net/catalog_new/full_view.php) for your review. We need to determine what this needs to look like.
Data Entry Screens for Beta Testing
( Related pages: About the HCLE Catalog, Discussing the HCLE Catalog, Catalog Subject View, Catalog Technical View, The Omeka Catalog Platform )
Table of Contents
Introduction
As the title indicates, this page is for capturing comments about the data entry screens being developed by our Database Team. The images below are pictures for reference only. If you would like to participate in the live test, please contact Liza (liza at hcle dot org). There is also plenty of further work to do on the catalog so you also contact us if you would like to volunteer your programming skills. We are particularly in need of someone experienced in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).Two other databases will store information about what is on the HCLE web sites (content management) and the individuals and institutions associated with HCLE (constituency relations management). Each of these database systems has its own data entry scheme and storage tables. Some of the information displayed in the Catalog Views will come from these other systems.
Catalog Database Overview
To be cobbled together from earlier pages...We want to include any document, image, periodical, book, piece of software or physical item (computer, for example) that might be of use in telling our story. Some of these items are held by LO*OP Center, Inc. as part of the HCLE archive. Others are in museums, libraries and private collections around the world. Many items are "born digital", have no representation in the physical world and are accessible only through someone else' web site. Some are conventionally copyrighted and can only be referenced or briefly quoted by HCLE. Others are public domain (without copyright) or carry a Creative Commons (or other) licence that is less restrictive than old fashioned copyright.
The Catalog contains many details about each item. There are fields that identify the item itself, describe it in detail and provide information about how it was used.
HCLE Catalog Maintenance Program
We are developing this program for use by staff and volunteers to put items and a large body of metadata into our catalog and digital repository. To use it, the user must first have entered his/her personal information into our People/Organizations data base (CiviCRM). The Maintenance Program will check to see that the name is there and open the appropriate form to register the user if this has not already been done. (The interface to CiviCRM has not been created yet. Users are manually setup by the support staff until the interface is ready.)
The Catalog Maintenance System will be used by HCLE staff and data entry volunteers to search for items, edit items previously entered in the catalog or for adding new items into the catalog. The Maintenance System has 5 functions available on the top navigation bar:
Of these, Catalog is the most developed.
It has 6 "views" or "screens" selectable through its drop-down menu. Each view displays related information drawn from a single record in the database. The views are:
Each view has prompts to help choose the right vocabulary to describe the item being cataloged but new catalogers should be coached by an experienced staff member before setting off on their own.
At the moment (29 Oct. 2014) anyone with the URL can search the catalog by item number. To change anything you must be logged in. The Database Team is hard at work implementing and testing this program. Please contact Liza at hcle dot org if you would like to work on this aspect of HCLE.
Let's look at each View.
Identify View
This is the first set of information to fill in when adding an item to our Catalog database. Imagine your task is to make catalog entries for a stack of informal publications that includes newsletters from hobby clubs, conference proceedings, advertisements from educational software companies, user manuals, program listings and handwritten notes. Here are a series of questions you must answer to do the job.
Liza's expanded questions, related to the list above, for Database Team (Oct. 2, 2014)
My testing procedure is simple. I just try to enter new data. This uncovers small, insignificant glitches as well as big ones. You'll have to tell me which ones are which. Does the wiki page help? (This page is: http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Data_entry_screens_beta)
Here are some further notes based on the questions from that page. I know you won't have time to think about them until later but I'll just capture my thoughts now while they are fresh.
Q1 & 2 Login, CiviCRM and WordPress
Liza (10/5) - I think you (Stan) said that hooking into CiviCRM wouldn't be too difficult. I'm assuming we can address this later. Right?
Stan (10/5) -- CiviCRM seems to allow us to check for users and possibly permissions, but as yet does not provide password validation that can be used by an external system. I my just need to do some more research, but I think the password verification will not be provided by CiviCRM.
Liza (10/6)-- CiviCRM runs under WordPress. I think WordPress does the login validation. I don't know whether it is possible to create a Login in WordPress that looks to the user like logging in to HCLE rather than WordPress. It should be possible.
Stan (10/12)
-- Looking at using Wordpress to manage the login, then a separate call to CiviCRM to see what level of access the contributor has. Each step will require separate research and development.
Stan (10/13)
--
I've spent several hours researching and testing with the CiviCRM API, hoping it would allow us to determine the user access based on CiviCRM data.
The CiviCRM API will allow me to access Individual, Household and Organization records, but not the User records. I'd hoped to use the User Role to determine what access rights they would have to the catalog. The Individual records can be updated by the user, allowing them to set their own access...NOT GOOD.
If CiviCRM allowed access to the User data, this would have worked, but since the API does not support this function, I don't believe we can use CiviCRM for access control to the catalog. If you want to run this by the CiviCRM expert, it would either confirm my theory, or give us options that I have not uncovered. I don't want to cost the project any money though and I'm 99% sure the User Data is not accessible via the API.
I am still looking into using the Wordpress Login to validate the Catalog Maintenance users. Based on the information above, all I would be able to do is allow anyone that is logged in full access to modify the Catalog. There would be no separate roles. If they had access to modify the Catalog, they could also modify the Selection Options. If this is acceptable, then I could try to implement this approach.
Q3 - Searching before Data Entry
Liza (10/5)
- To me (Liza) this is a biggy. Our plan has been to address data entry first so we've been focused on the entry screens. I didn't realize that we'd need to search before we could enter. For now I'm using both Omeka and phpMYadmin to see what's in the directory of images (digital repository). This is much less functional than my old Access system so it's a source of frustration. One process I know I'm bad at is keeping straight in my head which copy of a system I'm working on. This means I can easily get confused about whether my screen is showing me what is in the digital repository on hostGator, what has been copied to Omeka, what is on your 'production system', what's at Stanford and what is resident on my local laptop. If I scan a new item, where do I put the image?
Stan (10/5)
-- There is no requirement to search for an item before you enter or change data. You can either search and select an item from the Catalog Home screen, or go directly to one of the view screens and select an item using the selection tool at the bottom of the view.
Liza (10/5)
-- Am I right that you mean you, as programmer, have not required that the user search for an item? I'm taking the point of view of the user. Someone sitting down with an item, a magazine, for example, in hand will need to determine whether that item is already in the Catalog. This is the search I'm talking about.
Stan (10/6) -- The HTML attachment I sent you last week was basically a report of the key fields for every record in the database. This was a prototype based on our conversation that you needed an easy way to identify records that were missing critical information, ex. Title and Description. I put together a prototype to see if that is what you wanted. I need your feedback to know if I was providing something useful.
Liza (10/5)
-- I'm still pondering this. I'd like the user to be able to select the field to display and then have the choice of scrolling up and down the table of records or to jump to a record on the basis of a keyword before scrolling.
Stan (10/5) -- Use this link to view/update items. It is the production server for the beta testing and will be the permanent catalog maintenance system.http://loopcntr.net/catalog_new/identify_view.php
Liza (10/5) -- Maybe the search link on the Home page is supposed to put you into the Identify View. If so, it isn't working. The user needs to be able to move back and forth between search and enter smoothly. Can we put a Search button on the Navigation Bar of each View?
Stan (10/6) -- The search should now take you to the Identify_view page. I like the idea of the search button on the navigation bar.
Stan (10/5) -- The new catalog maintenance beta system does not have a repository for storing images. I was under the impression they would be housed on other servers across the web and the catalog maintenance would only store the URL for the image. You mentioned there may be multiple URLs for some items. This functionality should be easy to add. It just needs to be prioritized.Since I have no interaction with the other systems you are using, I can only offer the link above to the system we are developing.
Liza (10/6) -- OK. Our repository is on HostGator. I'll have to get together a cheat sheet on how to upload images. A common workflow will be to have the unscanned item in one's hand, search for it in our catalog and on the web, then, if it isn't in our catalog, get a new ID number and fill out the Identify View. The next set of steps involves making the image accessible. If there is a useable image on the web we can enter its URL into the Identify screen. If not we can scan the item, either immediately or later. In no case should the Identify View return an error message if the image is missing. Rather, it should say "Image not currently available". We also need to add Field 44 to the Identify screen to we know whether we have decided to scan the image later or not.
Stan (10/7) Field 44 added to Identify View. It will will be part of the Preservation View. Message changed to show the image is not available.
Stan (10/8) --
Q4. Evaluating Items for relevance to the project
This isn't a database question at all. But I do need to address it with my data entry crew when the time comes.Q5.
Most of this is also outside the scope of our immediate task except that we need to test the entering of an 'outside' URL. I don't understand how to create a new item (NOT using this data) with a new Item Number from the Identify view. This means I can't test outside URLs yet. I'm guessing that they won't work because the won't have a valid URL in the digital repository.Stan (10/5)
-- Using the Identify_view there is a button at the bottom for adding new items. The direction we were going was that some of the information on the identify view is critical and required, only the identify view would be used for adding new records. Additional data would be entered on the other views after the addition is done here. Existing items can be modified to point to any URL on the web. There are some links in existing records that don't seem to be something that can be referenced from a browser and they throw an error when you try to update the item. I can change this to only check the validity of a link if the link has changed. This needs to be prioritized.Added 10/6 - the error was only shown if the link had changed. The PHP error that was shown has been removed.
Liza -- Yes, we may need a slight direction change. Let's talk. (we talked on 10/6 and 8)
Stan (10/8) --
Q6.
Ah ha! I've discovered a mistake I made months ago. The preservation view, on the wiki here: http://hcle.wikispaces.com/Catalog_Data_Entry_Process was the wrong picture. I've corrected it. The new image displays original field number 44: To Scan, photo, copy. The point of this is to let the data entry person know whether the image is available yet or not. I was expecting the Identify View (or screen) to be used by both data entry people and catalog visitors. Now that we are doing views strictly for catalog maintenance it is appropriate to put field 44 on the Identify View. It should go near the top. If there's no other room let's replace 'Fragility' with 'To Scan'.Stan (10/5) -- I will look at adding this field. It should be a fairly easy change. This needs to be prioritized.
Liza (10/5) -- Show me your priority list, Stan, and I'll figure out where to fit this in.
Stan -- I forgot to mention earlier that all views allow visitors to view, but not modify the data. Is this implemented correctly?
Stan (10/7)
-- Added field 44 to the Identify View. It will also be on the Preservation View when it is developed.
Q5a.
This brings up another question. What do we do if we have multiple images of a single item? Can we add another field, one to many, that lets us record the URLs of additional images of the Identified item?
Stan - I can change the URL field to allow multiple URLs. I would display a thumbnail of the first URL on the right side. Would this work for you? This needs to be prioritized.
Liza - ok.
7.
Let's talk about how to get new numbers. I don't think I understand what you have implemented so far so I can't critique it.Stan - Numbers are assigned after clicking the "Create New Item" button at the bottom of the Identify_view page. Numbers are not pre-assigned. Pre-assigning numbers become cumbersome if by mistake a "new number" is already being used. I find it runs much smoother if the numbers are automatically assigned within the system when new items are entered. We could require only a title and description for the item, add it to the system, then mark the bag/box/etc that contains the item. Do we need to discuss?
Liza - Yes, a little more discussion and then I think your suggestion may be a good compromise.
8.
'Interim' should go with Box/Drawer and Folder. This is about how to find an item while we are processing it at LO*OP Center. 'Location' is for permanent location after the item has been digitized and found its final home. Location field should probably be linked to a CiviCRM record.Stan - I'm not sure I understand. Lets discuss this next time we talk, or if you prefer, provide an example of a couple of scenarios.
Stan (10/6)
-- Added separate box number and folder number fields to view. Implementation is incomplete as a new field needs to be added to the database for this implementation.
Subject View
As of Oct.6, 2014 -- Problems with Subject View
1. Login button on bottom of screen says 'Logoff' when user isn't logged in. Msg, same line to right, says Logged in as ll1 when not logged in.
Bibliography View
Full View
I put the prototype data on the production server (loopcntr.net/catalog_new/full_view.php) for your review. We need to determine what this needs to look like.Technical View